An assault on the UK basketball record books? Here’s what Mark Pope’s first team could do.
The goal has been clearly stated, and those doing the talking are dead serious.
This UK basketball team wants to put up an average of 35 3-point attempts per game.
It’ll be easier said than done to shoot that many balls from long range in a responsible manner that ensures the best chance at victory, but the Wildcats’ coaches — namely Mark Pope and longtime assistant Cody Fueger — aren’t joking around in their pursuit of the number, and interviews with Kentucky players over the course of the summer unearthed a practice plan that is clearly pointed toward that goal.
Even if UK doesn’t quite pull it off — and it’s worth noting that no NCAA Division I team has averaged that many 3-point shots per game since the 2018-19 season, and no high-major team has ever done it — these Cats are bound to get close.
Last season’s BYU team — coached by Pope, with Fueger as his “offensive coordinator” — averaged 32.0 3-pointers per game, second nationally. And this Kentucky roster appears to be even better equipped to take (and make) long-range shots following a transfer portal season that saw several prolific 3-point shooters flock to Lexington.
On Wednesday night, Kentucky put up 42 3-point shots and made 21 of them, a compelling result even against NCAA Division II Kentucky Wesleyan in a game that didn’t count.
A not-so-bold prediction: At least one UK basketball record will be broken during the 2024-25 season. Will any others fall? That’s the real question.
Kentucky record for most 3-pointers
A 35-year-old UK basketball record is in major jeopardy as the Pope era begins.
Back in the 1989-90 season — the program’s first under Rick Pitino — a Kentucky roster riddled by probation was overmatched in many of their games, and the first-year head coach employed an offensive approach aimed at trying to keep up with the competition (instantly winning over fans in the process).
That UK team — nicknamed “Pitino’s Bombinos” — averaged 28.9 3-point attempts per game (making 34.7% of them) and finished 14-14 overall and 10-8 in the SEC, a bridge to the program’s return to national prominence the following year.
Three and a half decades later, that school record is almost certain to fall.
Four of Pope’s incoming transfers led their respective schools in 3-point attempts last season — Ansley Almonor (7.4 per game at Fairleigh Dickinson), Jaxson Robinson (6.9 at BYU), Kerr Kriisa (6.3 at West Virginia) and Koby Brea (6.1 at Dayton) — and the Wildcats’ roster has several other talented players that can and will shoot from outside, especially under a new coaching staff that has already encouraged them to let it fly at a higher rate.
Barring a complete change in offensive philosophy between now and March, it’s more a question of by how much the 2024-25 Wildcats will break the school record for most 3-point attempts per game, not whether or not they will.
That 1989-90 UK team does not hold the school mark for most 3-point attempts per season, since those Cats played only 28 games. That record belongs to the 1991-92 team — the first squad eligible for the postseason under Pitino — which attempted 888 3-pointers over 36 games.
If Pope’s first team plays that many games — a fair prediction, based on preseason expectations — his Cats would need to shoot only 24.7 3-pointers per game to break that school record. That’s a safe bet.
Other UK basketball 3-point records
The school record for the best 3-point percentage in a season was actually set earlier this year.
John Calipari’s final Kentucky team led the nation by shooting 40.9% from deep, breaking the previous school mark of 39.7%, which was achieved by both the 1995-96 national title team (coached by Pitino, with Pope as a senior captain) and the 2010-11 Final Four squad.
This UK team will have a difficult time besting last year’s Cats in 3-point percentage.
Brea (49.8%) and Kriisa (42.4%) are the only Kentucky transfers who shot better than 40% from deep last season, and — while several of these new Wildcats could improve, and all three UK freshmen were accomplished shooters in high school — taking shots at such a high rate likely won’t translate to “No. 1 in the country” accuracy. (For example, BYU shot just 34.8% last season, placing 137th nationally.)
Calipari also had three of the top six 3-point shooters in school history on his final squad. Reed Sheppard (52.1%), Antonio Reeves (44.7%) and Rob Dillingham (44.4%) were all among the nation’s best 3-point shooters during the 2023-24 season.
Might some individual UK shooting numbers fall? That would take a monumental effort.
Cameron Mills holds the single-season mark for individual 3-point percentage, making 53.2% on 79 attempts during the 1996-97 season. If the minimum number of attempts is set at 100, the best rate belongs to Travis Ford, who made 52.9% of his 191 shots during the 1992-93 season.
The most likely Wildcat to flirt with either of those records is Dayton transfer Koby Brea, a 43.4% career shooter who made 49.8% of his 3-point attempts (100 of 201) last season and could be put in even better situations as part of Kentucky’s offense this season.
The UK record for most 3-point attempts in a season belongs to Derrick Miller, who put up 289 shots from deep despite playing only 28 games during the “Pitino’s Bombinos” run 35 years ago. That mark shouldn’t be in jeopardy this season, with so many capable 3-point shooters spread throughout Pope’s roster. Among Kentucky’s high-major transfers, Jaxson Robinson led the way with 6.9 attempts from deep last season. Even if he shoots seven 3-pointers per game this season, there wouldn’t be enough opportunities on the schedule to break Miller’s mark.
The most made 3-pointers in a season by a Kentucky player? That record belongs to new UK Athletics Hall of Fame inductee Jodie Meeks, who made 117 3-pointers during the 2008-09 season.
For Meeks’ record to fall, the Cats would need a deep NCAA Tournament run and, obviously, a tremendous and sustained shooting effort from someone on the roster. An example of how difficult this would be: Meeks made 117 3-pointers in 36 games during his record-breaking season. If Brea shoots and makes 3s at the same elite rate this season as he did last season, he would need 39 games to surpass Meeks, meaning he’d have to be healthy for all of Kentucky’s games, and the Cats would likely need to make it all the way to the Final Four.
A few single-game UK 3-point records that will need a hot hand to be broken this season:
▪ Meeks holds the record for most 3-pointers by a UK player in a single game with 10 against Tennessee in 2009. Meeks set the all-time school scoring record with 54 points that night.
▪ Tony Delk has the record for most 3-pointers by a UK player in a game in Rupp Arena with nine against TCU in 1996.
▪ Eric Bledsoe’s eight 3-pointers against East Tennessee State in 2010 mark the highest total by a Kentucky player in an NCAA Tournament game. (Delk made seven 3s in UK’s win over Syracuse in the 1996 NCAA title game.)
▪ Wenyen Gabriel made seven 3-pointers against Alabama in the 2018 SEC Tournament, a school record for the most in the league’s postseason tourney.
▪ Antonio Reeves made six 3-pointers against Howard two years ago in his first game as a Wildcat, the most by a player in his UK debut. No other debuting Kentucky player has ever hit more than three 3s in his first game with the team.
Best scoring teams in Wildcats’ history
Where might Mark Pope’s first Kentucky team end up among the all-time offensive juggernauts in school history? These Cats will need to put up points in bunches to crack any of the storied overall scoring lists. Not surprising, for a program with this much tradition.
The 3-point shot was universally adopted across Division I for the 1986-87 season, but the Wildcats with the best scoring average actually played nearly two decades before that time. And six of the 10 best scoring teams in UK basketball history played before the 3-point line made its way to college.
The single-season record for highest scoring average in a UK season remains with the 1969-70 Wildcats, who averaged 96.8 points per game and finished with the No. 1 ranking in the Associated Press poll, though they lost to Jacksonville in the NCAA regional finals. Dan Issel’s 948 points in just 28 games — an average of 33.9 points per game — remain tops in school history by a wide margin.
It’s safe to say those records won’t be broken anytime soon.
No Division I team has averaged more than 91 points per game in 16 years — when VMI averaged 93.8 (and beat UK in Rupp Arena in the season opener) — and the 2006-07 VMI team (100.9 points per game and a whopping 41.9 3-point attempts) was the last to average more than the 96.8 points that Kentucky put up during 1969-70 season.
A more realistic outcome would be cracking the list of top-10 scoring teams in UK history.
To do that, Pope’s Wildcats would have to average 87.5 points per game, which would have been good enough for third nationally during the 2023-24 season. Calipari’s final Kentucky team averaged 89.0 points per game — the sixth-highest total in school history — and finished second on the national list behind Alabama’s 90.1 points per game.
By comparison, Pope’s final BYU squad averaged only 81.4 points per game — No. 22 in the country — but this UK roster is stacked with more offensive talent than those Cougars, and the pace at which Pope wants to play suggests some triple-digit performances are coming soon.
Long-held school records will almost certainly fall this season, and Pope’s vision for the direction the sport is headed will mean points aplenty in the UK basketball program’s future.
This story was originally published October 22, 2024 at 6:30 AM.
